Optimal Energy Management of an Improved Elevator with Energy Storage Capacity based on Dynamic Programming

Efficiency and energy consumption reduction are becoming a key issue in elevation applications. Energy Storage Systems (ESS) can play a significant role in this field, together with their associated Energy Management Strategy (EMS) in order to optimize the overall behavior of the elevator. This paper presents an EMS based on Dynamic Programming (DP) for a stochastic application where the cost function is based on the stock management theory. For that purpose, an implementation methodology for DP based EMS is also proposed. That methodology has been applied on an elevator where the system modeling has been carried out. Due to the stochastic behavior of the application, a novel representation method is also presented (General Energy and Statistical Description). The EMS has been implemented and validated experimentally on a real elevator with energy storage capability reducing grid power peaks by 65% and braking resistor energy losses up to 84%.